Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE LINCOLN-CHILD, by JAMES OPPENHEIM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE LINCOLN-CHILD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Clearing in the forest
Last Line: Work wrought through love!
Subject(s): Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865); Presidents, United States


Clearing in the forest,
In the wild Kentucky forest,
And the stars, wintry stars strewn above!
O Night that is the starriest
Since Earth began to roll --
For a Soul
Is born out of Love!
Mother love, father love, love of Eternal God --
Stars have pushed aside to let him through --
Through heaven's sun-sown deeps
One sparkling ray of God
Strikes the clod --
(And while an angel-host through wood and clearing sweeps!)
Born in the wild
The Child
Naked, ruddy, new,
Wakes with the piteous human cry and at the
mother-heart sleeps.

To the mother wild berries and honey,
To the father awe without end,
To the child a swaddling of flannel --
And a dawn rolls sharp and sunny
And the skies of winter bend
To see the first sweet word penned
In the godliest human annal
Frail Mother of the Wilderness,
How strange the world shines in
And the cabin becomes chapel
And the baby lies secure --
Sweet Mother of the Wilderness,
New worlds for you begin,
You have tasted of the apple
That giveth wisdom sure.

Soon in the wide wilderness,
On a branch blown over a creek,
Up a trail of the wild coon,
In a lair of the wild bee,
The rugged boy, by danger's stress,
Learnt the speech the wild thing speak,
Learnt the Earth's eternal tune
Of strife-engendered harmony --
Went to school where Life itself was master,
Went to church where Earth was minister --
And in danger and disaster
Felt his future manhood sir!

All about him the land,
Eastern cities, Western prairie,
Wild, immeasurable, grand;
But he was lost where blossomy boughs make airy
Bowers in the forest, and the sand
Makes brook-water a clear mirror that gives back
Green branches and trunks black
And clouds across the heavens lightly fanned.
Yet all the future dreams, eager to waken
Within that woodland soul --
And the bough of boy has only to be shaken
That the fruit drop whereby this Earth shall roll
A little nearer God than ever before.

Little recks he of war,
Of national millions waiting on his word --
Dreams still the Event unstirred
In the heart of the boy, the little babe of the wild --
But the years hurry and the tide of the sea
Of Time flows fast and ebbs, and he, even he
Must leave the wilderness, the wood-haunts wild.
Soon shall the cyclone of Humanity
Tearing through Earth suck up this little child
And whirl him to the top, where he shall be
Riding the storm-column in the lightning-stroke,
Calm at the peak, while down below worlds rage,
And Earth goes out in blood and battle-smoke,
And leaves him with the Sun -- an epoch and an age!

And lo, as he grew ugly, gaunt,
And gnarled his way into a man,
What wisdom came to feed his want,
What worlds came near to let him scan!
And as he fathomed through and through
Our dark and sorry human scheme,
He knew what Shakespeare never knew,
What Dante never dared to dream --
That Men are one
Beneath the sun,
And before God are equal souls --
This truth was his,
And this it is
That round him such a glory rolls --
For not alone he knew it as a truth,
He made it of his blood, and of his brain -
He crowned it on the day when piteous Booth
Sent a whole land to weeping with world pain --
When a black cloud blotted the sun
And men stopped in the streets to sob
To think Old Abe was dead.

Dead, and the day's work still undone,
Dead, and war's running heart athrob,
And earth with fields of carnage freshly spread --
Millions died fighting,
But in this man we mourned
Those millions, and one other --
And the States today uniting,
North and South,
East and West,
Speak with a people's mouth
A rhapsody of rest
To him our beloved best,
Our big, gaunt, homely brother --
Our huge Atlantic coast-storm in a shawl,
Our cyclone in a smile -- our President
Who knew and loved us all
With love more eloquent
Than his own words -- with Love that in real
deeds was spent.

O living God, O Thou who living art,
And real, and near, draw, as at that babe's birth
Into our souls and sanctify our Earth --
Let down thy strength that we endure
Mighty and pure
As mothers and fathers of our own Lincoln-child --
Make us more wise, more true, more strong, more mild,
That we may day by day
Rear this wild blossom through its soft petals of clay;
That hour by hour
We may endow it with more human power
Than is our own --
That it may reach the goal
Our Lincoln long has shown!
O Child, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone,
Soul torn from out our soul!
May you be great, and pure, and beautiful --
A soul to search this world
To be a father, brother, comrade, son,
A toiler powerful;
A man whose toil is done
One with God's Law above:
Work wrought through Love!





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